Float
by Mourning Ophelia
Summary: A one-shot that explores Kagome's deeper reaction to seeing Inuyasha and Kikyou. (IYxKH)


Float

By Mourning Ophelia

Email: lilobeans@hotmail.com

Disclaimer:  Story mine.  Characters not.

Author's Note:  Some people are going to freak out when they see how I characterized Kagome, but I was trying to give a fresh spin on her.  For some sick reason, I love writing these first character bits where I torture the character of choice (See "The Good Girl"), but it helps to get my brain functioning.  Anyway, this one-shot takes place mainly in between where Kagome goes back down the well after seeing Inuyasha swear his loyalty to Kikyou, and before he finds her sitting at the well and she explains her feelings to him.  Any comments, questions, or criticism is welcome; just leave me a note in the comments!

= = = = = = = = = = = = = 

I wish he could have seen that, in the end, she and I were the same.

The way he used to look at me like I was her, like I was some substitute for the lost thing; I mean, I guess it never really bothered me.  Until now.  

Up to this moment, I had understood his need for closure.  I understood that he still loved her.  I understood a lot of things that I probably shouldn't have.  He tried convincing himself that we weren't the same, even though he knew that I had her soul and her appearance.  I had always felt sort of sorry for him, and had loved him regardless of the fact that I wasn't the first.  I had her heart and spirit after all.  So how can you consider two people separate identities when they shared the same heart and soul?

But she had something I didn't.  She was dead.  Sacrificing her life for someone as loyal as him scarred his heart so badly, that I think it refused to beat for a very long time.  I know he doesn't want me to get hurt, but it's only because I can find the shards for him.  He knows I'll make a wish for him.  

And I know what he'd desire the most.

I replaced her in his heart, and then she would later fight to remove me.  I can't keep up with someone as powerful and touched as her.  I'm weak, and I'm a human.  Compared to her, I'm nothing.

I understood.

Watching him tell her that he'd always protect her and spurting out all the things he was supposed to have promised to me almost made me laugh masochistically.  But I didn't, because she wouldn't have.  Breathe, I told myself, Breathe.  

Why did I always have to watch scenes like this?  Why couldn't fate just be nice to me for once and let me crawl under a rock and die?  

Why did I feel so numb?

I tried to move my feet, but it was like they had grown deep roots into the soft ground.  It hurt to hear all this from him, but deep down, I knew that his feelings had always been there.  Angry.  I was angry.  No.  I was sorry.  Sorry.  It wasn't his fault; I'd be confused if I ever met his reincarnation in my world.  When two people are the same, it's reasonable to understand how he could want both.  

Finally, she was gone.  He must have smelled me or something, because he turned to just stare at me.  Amber eyes, like the full moon painted onto the night time sky.  I could see he was sorry, but didn't he see that I already understood? 

I wasn't dead.

We didn't say anything, and I ended up just turning back in the direction I had come from.  I'm not sure if he moved or not, but it didn't really matter to me.  I was gone before he could even blink.  The darkness swallowed me, and for once, it didn't chill me to the bone.  For a minute, I just wished for the well to drown me forever, send me to some other time that wasn't so complicated.

Climbing out was tougher than I thought.  Wasn't the well supposed to eat my bones?  

I made myself get out from the deep though, dying down there over some stupid heart break would have been pathetic.  I walked past Souta and Grandpa sweeping outside, went around my mother cooking for dinner, and went straight for my room.  Not sure of what to do, I let my feet carry me into the bathroom.  Bad choice, I know.  I was numb though, I wasn't dead.

Would he like me better if I was dead?

My face was ghostly pale and staring back at me with an expression I didn't recognize.  I really did look like her; I just wasn't as elegant or as composed.  My hair was messy, and hers was always thick and straight.  Same nose, same eyes, same mouth.

I picked up my hair brush and threw it at the mirror as hard as I could.  

It shattered and caused a magnificent shower of light and self reflection.

I didn't want to look like her anymore.  

We might want the same things, I might have stolen her soul, but I didn't want that anymore.  I just wanted to be different, to have my own life.  I didn't think that was a crime, but somehow it felt wrong.  I didn't realize my hair had been cut until it was on the floor around my feet.  I didn't realize my hands were bleeding from holding the glass.  Stupid, I scolded myself, that was really stupid.  I looked at myself in that single shaving until I couldn't even make out my own reflection anymore.  I was crying, but I wasn't sad at all.  And that blood that was all over the floor now?  That was mine.  

He'd like me better if I was dead.  He wouldn't have to choose if one of us was gone.  I wouldn't be missed, because her soul would be returned to her, and he'd be happy to see me go.  He would love me if I was gone.

My mom chose that moment to rush in, staring at me as if I was a total stranger.  She grasped my hands, slick with my life, and pulled me from the bathroom floor back into my room.

"Kagome!"  She cried, tears already streaming down her face, "Kagome, please don't do this!"

"I'm not her, right?  I'm not her!"  My voice was high and strained.  I don't think she knew who I was talking about, but she must have figured it out.  Grasping me close to her, she didn't care that Souta and Grandpa had rushed up to see what was wrong. 

 _I was what was wrong._

"You're my Kagome!  Please, my Kagome wouldn't do this!"  

Grandpa pulled Souta out of the room just as quickly as they had come in.

"But he doesn't want me because I'm not her."  I was babbling, but she just rocked me back and forth like she did when my father died.  When I was a little girl.  

But right at that moment, I was that little girl again.  I wasn't numb anymore; all I could make out was the dull ache in my hands and the stabbing pains in my heart.  Because in the end, that was all I had left.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = 

We left the next day.  Just mom and I.  The night before, she had wrapped my hands and put me to bed.  But just as the sun began to rise, she came in and started packing for me, disappeared, and returned to drag me out of bed.  I fell asleep as soon as the car began to roll down the barren streets of Tokyo.  Where was everyone?

I woke up occasionally, but it was only to take in the scenery, and my mother's expression.  Both were peaceful, but my mother was far more beautiful than any of the flowers that lined the dirt road.  I asked her where we were going, but she just smiled and told me it was a surprise.

It was a surprise, let me tell you.  Bordering the edge of a small lake was a run down… shrine.  Mom explained that it was just a worshipping room.

"It belongs to my side of the family.  Grab your things, and I'll show you around."

My hands ached with gripping our small bags and sleeping bags.  It was weird, I wasn't thinking about him at all anymore.  Or her.  

I smiled at my mom, my first in what felt like a thousand years.  "All of our ancestors?"  I nodded in the direction of the prayer alter.  Mom laughed and smiled back with me.  We set our stuff down and head towards the pond.  I thought it was strange how clear the water seemed to be, but it didn't faze her.  

"Kagome…" she began, facing the still body of water, "I don't always understand what's going on in your life, but I do know pain.  There's a reason I brought you here, and I would have done so sooner, if I had known that you'd gotten this far."

I decided not to be offended.

"This pond… well, it's a tradition in my family for all of the women to bathe in its waters to clear their hearts and minds, so to speak."  She paused, searching for the right words, "Somehow, it purifies your emotions and tames the storms in your heart.  Sort of like our tree back at the shrine."

"Did you come here when Dad died?"  I didn't mean to be rude, but it struck me as peculiar when she left us for a weekend to be by herself.  Mom nodded; she didn't need words to explain why to me, her eyes explained everything.  

Suddenly, I felt selfish… or maybe childish?  No, selfish.  Even when I was a young girl, I always understood that something had happened to my father, but I had always kept it out of my heart and out of my mind.  I clutched my mother's hand, trying to finish the thought or any coherent thought in general.  But staring out at the placid waters had rendered me into a speechless stupor.  Maybe I was just tired of thinking.  Maybe I was just tired in general.

"Kagome."  I looked up expectantly, her face was earnest and serene, and she spoke again "Love is something that we can't control.  Like the weather or even life."  

I gave silence as my consent to listen.

"But because things change, or it snows… we don't give up living.  One should never give up living life just because of love."  She took another step towards the lake, "If we try to drown ourselves in it, you float back up."

"That's not true.  You can always grip the bottom of the floor."  I stated, still unmoved by her efforts.

"But what is it like at the bottom, Kagome?"  She spoke my name as if it had been a prayer, even though I felt like I was in Hell.  My throat went dry, and I turned my back to her.  Was the bottom like the bottom of the Bone Eater's Well… dark, damp and boundless?  Or was it the dull ache in my heart, the feeling of defeat and betrayal.  Maybe, I thought to myself, It wasn't either of them.  Maybe it was…

"…Cold."  I picked up the last word of my mother's sentence before I turned around.

"What?" 

"I said, we should get inside before we catch a cold."

Now, by inside, I hadn't thought that she meant the run down rickety shrine.  Instead, I had expected a nice warm car or bed.  But as I was laying on my back, staring up through the holes in the roof, I realized how right it felt; how sleeping outside under the stars in nothing more than a sleeping bag had become my reality. My life wasn't a dream, nor was it a fairytale, as hard as I aimed for it to be.  He wasn't a Prince Charming, but, rather, more like a leaf blowing in the wind.  Even if I tried, I could never contain him or his spirit by anything as material as marriage or gifts.  There were other things that he did to show he cared-- even if it wasn't in the way I might have wanted-- and he always protected me, so why was I being so damn egocentric?

I stood up and walked out past the car and to the lake.

Did I even deserve him?

One foot found itself submerged under water, and then the other.  Suddenly, it was up to my waist, and then my neck.  For a spring night, the water wasn't cold, but rather tepid in the moon's light.  And it was just me, under the stars, alone but satisfied.  A shiver crept up my spine involuntarily, and my feet carried my face beneath the water's surface.  Slowly, I warned myself.  When I finally reached the deepest part of the lake, I felt the ground falling from my feet, and my body began sinking like a broken doll.  My toes dug into the soft dirt at the bottom, but there was nothing to grip; nothing but loose dirt and my sanity.

There was nothing.

And I screamed, the water swallowing it before it could reach an ear, and I cried, but I couldn't bring myself to stay at the bottom anymore.  I kicked as hard as I could and broke through the surface, gasping for oxygen and something to grab onto.  But by this point, I was floating, and I could breathe again.  Something inside of me clicked and I forced myself to be still, my head bobbing up and down with the force of the gentle wind. I was floating.  Floating.

"The bottom," I told my Mom who had been watching from the bank, "Is very dark, and very cold.  I felt trapped."

"And the top?"  She asked, seating herself next to the water and running a hand through it lazily.

"…it was freedom." 

 Even if I were to never feel that way again, even if it was just for that one single moment, I felt as though my heart would burst with happiness and I could fly into the fading night.  My little innuendo with the darker side of life had inevitably taught me something, that I would never have been able to have gotten on my own.  As I wadded out of the water leisurely, I smiled at my mom, and she returned it fully.  I didn't need to say thank you on that morning when the sun rose in pastels; I didn't need to say a word.  I finally understood.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = 

When we got back home, Souta was careful about approaching me.  He inquired about our trip, but Mom winked at me before I replied.  It was our special secret now, and if I ever had a daughter then maybe…

"He came by, you know!"  Souta put in quickly as we sat down to eat, "But I made him go back home.  I told him that you and Mom went for a trip and that he hurt your feelings…"  

I listened to my little brother ramble on for a couple of minutes with a slight grin on my face.  The mental image of Souta the Scrawny pushing Inuyasha the Invincible down the well was almost too much to bear.  Deep inside, I knew that Souta was just trying to make me feel better, and that Inuyasha probably hadn't come to retrieve me.  Souta would have done anything to have had the hanyou for a friend, but first and foremost, I was his sister.  He defended my honor, and I couldn't help but think that it was cute.  I hid a laugh behind my hand as he finished telling his tale, and excused myself to go do my homework, or at least pretend that I was interested in studying.  

Grandpa had replaced my mirror, and my room seemed unnaturally spotless.  Walking to the window, I opened, and picked up my math book, only to set it aside a moment later.  Buyo had curled up on my pillow, not even raising an eye to inspect the intruder.  I pulled the cat into my lap and began to stroke its fur.

I wasn't dead.

Even if he loved her, it wouldn't be any of my business.  I could never interfere with something so pure and dedicated as that love.  She had died in a show of ultimate betrayal and sacrifice, and I could never be able to compete with that.  I was surprised to find that it didn't bother me nearly as much as it should have.  But I knew that my fairy tale was not my reality.

I wasn't dead.  I was _alive.  _

How selfish of me to keep him at the bottom all this time; how could I not have realized that being with him, by his side, was enough?  Inuyasha, like a precious fall leaf, needed freedom before roots.  Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to help him find this path and carry him through the hard times like he had so often done for me.  Breathe, I told myself, Breathe.  I would be happy just seeing his face.  That's all I needed.

I wasn't dead, and for once, I was glad.  

= = = = = = = = = = = = = 

I hope you're not dead from boredom yet, my dear reader. ;)  

3 Ophelia, 2003


End file.
